Moby dickHerman Melville’s book Moby dick is a book that takes place in the 1830s Aboard the whaling ship the Pequod, in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. Although this book was really interesting it was some unnecessary detail. Even thought this book had some unnecessary detail it is a very good book because of the characters, conflict, and settings.

There are many characters in this book. One of my favorites was the half-crazed sea captain captain Ahab. He is on a revengeful quest to find and kill the a whale that devoured his leg. another one is queequeg he is a harpooner from new Zealand he is also a cannibal. He became part of the story when he was put in the same room as Ishmael a young teacher at a hotel and they start talking about boats.

There is a lot of conflict in this book. Ahab dedicates his ship and crew to destroying Moby Dick, a white whale, because he sees this whale as the living embodiment of all evil in the universe. By ignoring the dangers that this quest has, setting himself against other men, , Ahab arrogantly defies the limitations imposed upon other human beings. In the end Ahab dies and so did the pequod literally which made the book that much better.

The story begins in Massachusetts in New Bedford and Nantucket Island, the chief centers of the American whaling industry. From there, the setting of the novel shifts to the whaling ship Pequod as it cruises around the globe. Then the settings of the novel becomes sailing the vast and awesome Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.

So, the book Moby dick is a great book by Herman Melville .I think if you have the chance everyone should read it. The unnecessary detail was the only thing wrong with the book and it is still great.

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...The Essence of Three
Whether it is acknowledged or not, numbers have always prevailed: as a universal language, a means for currency, and even throughout religions. In MobyDick by Herman Melville the importance of numbers is far from forgotten. Melville uses several references to the number three throughout his novel to symbolize spirituality in relation to fate.
Throughout the novel there are several uses of the number three. MobyDick begins with the short statement “Call me Ishmael,” which is a three worded sentence (Melville 3). This short three lettered sentence prepares the reader for the later—less obvious—accounts of three. Ishmael goes from three different cities before finally boarding the Pequod: New York City to New Bedford and finally to Nantucket. While in New Bedford Ishmael looks at three different inns, which are The Crossed Harpoons, The Sword-Fish, and The Spouter, in which he chooses to stay at the Spouter Inn. The next day Ishmael goes to the Whaleman’s Chapel, in which he mentions three different marble tablets that memorialize the sailors lost at sea. After New Bedford, Ishmael travels to Nantucket, where more threes yet another sequence of threes occur. Ishmael learns “that there were three ships up for three-years’ voyages—The Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod” (Melville 77). Of these ships, Ishmael chooses the Pequod, which has three different captains: Ahab, Peleg, and Bildad. The...

...Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Limits of Knowledge
As Ishmael tries, in the opening pages of Moby-Dick, to offer a simple collection of literary excerpts mentioning whales, he discovers that, throughout history, the whale has taken on an incredible multiplicity of meanings. Over the course of the novel, he makes use of nearly every discipline known to man in his attempts to understand the essential nature of the whale. Each of these systems of knowledge, however, including art, taxonomy, and phrenology, fails to give an adequate account. The multiplicity of approaches that Ishmael takes, coupled with his compulsive need to assert his authority as a narrator and the frequent references to the limits of observation (men cannot see the depths of the ocean, for example), suggest that human knowledge is always limited and insufficient. When it comes to MobyDick himself, this limitation takes on allegorical significance. The ways of MobyDick, like those of the Christian God, are unknowable to man, and thus trying to interpret them, as Ahab does, is inevitably futile and often fatal.
The Deceptiveness of Fate
In addition to highlighting many portentous or foreshadowing events, Ishmael’s narrative contains many references to fate, creating the impression that the Pequod’s doom is inevitable. Many of the sailors believe in...

...The Tragedy of Fate
MobyDick is a story that is teeming with fate. Whether it’s the people they meet or the places they end up, the characters head down the road of fate. In the story the character’s path is already planned out, and God has already paved the way for everything that will happen in their lives. It is fate that Ishmael misses the ferry and has to stay in New Bedford. It is fate that Ishmael and Queequeg, two polar opposite people, become very close friends. Anyway one looks at it, it is impossible that all these things could work out with out having a greater plan already mapped out for them. Once the men sign up to join the Pequod as shipmates, they fall captive to the tragic destiny that awaits Ahab.
Ishmael, one of the major characters, is an excellent example of the fate in MobyDick. It is not by chance that he misses the ferry and ends up on the Pequod. It is not by chance that Ishmael and Queequeg become close friends, which is unlikely because they are so different in appearance and personality. It is not by chance that they are forced to room together because the inn is full and doesn’t have any open rooms. God has their whole lives planned out; fate is shown by the fact that they will meet by such a slim chance, become friends, and eventually become shipmates. The two men were confronted by Elijah, a prophet, who warns them that they are doomed if they board ship. Elijah says, “Ye’ve...

...control over our lives exercised through free will in our choices, others believe an entirely different power is at hand in controlling our lives. These issues often find themselves associated in literature, with examples such as John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, Herman Melville’s MobyDick, and Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World. Among these books, there are different interpretations on the role of fate and free will in human life. In particular, these three different works of literature express varying shows of balance between fate and free will, and how easily that balance can be changed. Ultimately, it is the decisions made by the different characters, the reasons behind their choices, and the respective consequences that ensue that lead understanding of the different demonstrations of the authors’ interpretations of free will and fate.
Free will and fate are often regarded in terms of a balance, in that there is some of life that is controllable by using choice, represented as our free will, while there is still another portion where there is little to no control, something we call fate. This observation of a balance between free will and fate is especially seen in Herman Melville’s MobyDick. In MobyDick, Ishmael, our protagonist, finds himself in the company of Queequeg, the chief harpooner aboard the Pequod. While together, Ishmael and Queequeg weave a mat, with Ishmael passing the...

..."Call me Ishmael," Moby-Dick begins, in one of the most recognizable opening lines in English-language literature. The narrator, an observant young man setting out from Manhattan, has experience in the merchant marine but has recently decided his next voyage will be on a whaling ship. On a cold, gloomy night in December, he arrives at the Spouter-Inn in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and agrees to share a bed with a then-absent stranger. When his bunk mate, a heavily tattooed Polynesian harpooner named Queequeg, returns very late and discovers Ishmael beneath his covers, both men are alarmed, but the two quickly become close friends and decide to sail together from Nantucket, Massachusetts on a whaling voyage.
In Nantucket, the pair signs on with the Pequod, a whaling ship that is soon to leave port. The ship’s captain, Ahab, is nowhere to be seen; nevertheless, they are told of him – a "grand, ungodly, godlike man," according to one of the owners, who has "been in colleges as well as 'mong the cannibals." The two friends encounter a mysterious man named Elijah on the dock after they sign their papers and he hints at troubles to come with Ahab. The mystery grows on Christmas morning when Ishmael spots dark figures in the mist, apparently boarding the Pequod shortly before it sets sail that day.
The ship’s officers direct the early voyage while Ahab stays in his cabin. The chief mate is Starbuck, a serious, sincere Quaker and fine leader; second...

...Often in great works of literature, symbols are incorporated to add depth. These symbols make it more interesting to the reader by making connections from one idea to another. Herman Melville depicts a great number of characters and symbols in his 19th century novel MobyDick. Melville uses symbols to develop plot, characters, and to give the reader a deeper interpretation of the novel. (Tucker) The author successfully uses the symbols of brotherhood, monomania, isolation, religion, and duality to make his book more interesting to its readers.
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<br>At the beginning of the novel, the characters Ishmael and Queequeg are introduced. Ishmael is the narrator of the story. He is also a merchant seaman who signs up for a whaling voyage to see the world- and the only crewmember to survive and tell us the story. Queequeg is a tattooed cannibal from the South Seas. He is courageous, as well as kind-hearted. (Cavendish) After becoming friends with Ishmael, he also signs up for whaling and becomes a harpooner.
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<br>Melville chose to depict brotherhood as a symbol in a couple different ways. In the hotel room before boarding the Pequod, Ishmael and Queequeg share a room together, where they both sleep. One such morning when Ishmael awakes, he recalls:
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<br>How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some...

...MOBYDICK CHAPTER SUMMARIES
Chapter 1: Loomings
The narrative of Moby-Dick begins with the famous brief sentence, “Call me Ishmael.” Ishmael, a sailor, describes a typical scene in New York City, with large groups of men gathering on their days off to contemplate the ocean and dream of a life at sea. He explains that he himself went to sea because, like these men, he was feeling a “damp, drizzly November in [his] soul” and craved adventure. Shunning anything too “respectable” (or expensive), he always ships as a common sailor rather than as a passenger.
Chapter 2: The Carpet-Bag
Ishmael travels from New York to New Bedford, Massachusetts, the whaling capital of the United States. He arrives too late to catch the ferry to Nantucket, the original whaling center of New England; for the sake of tradition, Ishmael wants to sail in a Nantucket whaler. For now, however, he has to spend a few nights in New Bedford. He roams the streets looking for an inn, but those that he finds seem too expensive. He stumbles into, then quickly out of, a church full of wailing and weeping African Americans, where a sermon is being preached on “the blackness of darkness.” Ishmael finally wanders into the Spouter-Inn, owned by Peter Coffin. The ominous name of the inn and the owner satisfy his mood, and the place is dilapidated and sure to be cheap.
Chapter 3: The Spouter-Inn
Inside the Spouter-Inn, Ishmael finds a large, somewhat...

...Julie K. Coleman
October 28th, 2010
MobyDickMobyDick, written by Herman Melville, was published in 1851 during a productive time in American Literature. Written during the same time as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, MobyDick has been classified as American Romanticism. Melville’s two previous novels, Typee and Omoo, were very well received and won him fans in the USA and elsewhere. MobyDick was criticized for being too long and some of the characters as being unrealistic. Now the novel is considered ahead of its time and it was not until after Melville’s death that the book began to receive recognition for its brilliance. MobyDick is now considered an epic tale.
The novel is told from the point of view of Ishmael. Ishmael is a wandering sailor that has experience in the merchant marine but has decided to join the crew of a whaling ship. He arrives in New Bedford, Massachusetts and agrees to share a bed with a stranger who isn’t present yet. His bunkmate turns out to be Queequeg. Queequeg is a heavily tattooed Polynesian harpooner with whom Ishmael quickly becomes close friends with. Together, they sail together from Nantucket, Massachusetts on a whaling voyage. Ishmael and Queequeg sign up to be part of the crew of the Peqoud whaling ship. While the captain, Ahab, of the ship is nowhere to be...